Tanzania

Tanzania is a country in Africa.

It is next to the Indian Ocean. It has wide grassy plains and tall mountains. Some islands belong to Tanzania too. The capital city is Dodoma.

Tanzania is in East Africa, just south of the Equator. Its east coast faces the Indian Ocean, and the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba lie just offshore. The mainland makes up more than 99 percent of the country.

Most of the mainland is wide plains and plateaus, but it also has Africa's highest mountain, Kilimanjaro, and some of the world's biggest lakes. The capital, Dodoma, is in the middle of the country. Dar es Salaam, on the coast, is the largest city and the main port.

Tanzania lies just south of the Equator in East Africa. It was formed as a sovereign state on April 26, 1964, by the union of Tanganyika on the mainland and Zanzibar offshore, and took its present name, the United Republic of Tanzania, in October 1964. The mainland covers more than 99 percent of the combined territory; Zanzibar and Pemba have their own government administration, while Mafia Island is run from the mainland.

Except for a narrow coastal belt and the islands, most of the mainland lies above 200 meters. Broad plains and plateaus contrast with dramatic relief: Kilimanjaro, at 5,895 meters the highest point in Africa, and Lake Tanganyika, about 1,436 meters deep. Dodoma, the capital, is near the center of the mainland, and Dar es Salaam is the largest city and port. Tanzania's National Bureau of Statistics projected a population of 70,038,850 for 2026.

Dar es Salaam is a big city by the sea.

Zanzibar is an island with an old stone town. Many of its houses have big carved doors. Long ago, ships came here to trade.

Dar es Salaam is Tanzania's largest city and its largest port. Off the coast, the island of Unguja (Zanzibar) has Stone Town, a World Heritage Site since 2000. Its houses are built of coral stone and mangrove wood, and many have big carved double doors.

Farther south, on two small islands, are the ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani and Songo Mnara. From the 1200s to the 1500s their merchants traded gold and ivory for silver, perfumes, pottery from Persia and porcelain from China. In the north, the town of Moshi looks out toward Kilimanjaro.

Dar es Salaam is the largest city and port. On Unguja island, UNESCO describes the Stone Town of Zanzibar (inscribed 2000) as an outstanding example of a Swahili coastal trading town, blending African, Arab, Indian and European influences over more than a thousand years. Its buildings are mostly of coralline ragstone and mangrove timber set in lime mortar, and its two-story houses are known for elaborately carved double 'Zanzibar' doors. UNESCO notes that the Anglican cathedral there was built on the site of the town's last slave market.

About 300 km south of Dar es Salaam lie the ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani and Songo Mnara (inscribed 1981). Kilwa was occupied from the 9th to the 19th century and peaked in the 13th and 14th; it minted its own coins, and in 1331-1332 the traveler Ibn Battuta described it as one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Its Great Mosque dates from the 11th century, and some of its domes are decorated with Chinese porcelain.

Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain in Africa.

Its top has snow and ice. Kilimanjaro is a volcano. Tanzania also has very big lakes. One lake is very, very deep.

Kilimanjaro rises 5,895 meters, the highest point in Africa. It is a huge volcanic mountain with three main peaks, Kibo, Mawenzi and Shira, and its snowy top stands alone above the plains.

Two long cracks in Earth's crust, branches of the East African Rift, run through Tanzania. Many of their deep, narrow valleys are filled with lakes, such as Lake Tanganyika, the second deepest lake in the world. In the north, Ngorongoro Crater is the world's largest caldera, a giant bowl left by a volcano. Lake Victoria, on the northern border, is not in the rift.

Kilimanjaro, 5,895 m, is the highest mountain in Africa and one of the largest volcanoes in the world, rising about 4,877 m above the surrounding plains. UNESCO (inscribed 1987) lists five vegetation zones from its lower slopes through montane forest, heath and moorland and alpine desert to the summit, and warns that its glaciers are vulnerable to retreat.

The East African Rift System crosses the mainland in two north-south branches. The Western Rift follows the western frontier and holds Lakes Tanganyika (about 1,436 m deep, the world's second deepest) and Rukwa; the Eastern or Great Rift runs from the Kenyan border near Lakes Eyasi, Manyara and Natron south to Lake Nyasa. The central plateau, over a third of the country, lies between them. West of Mount Meru (4,565 m), a chain of mountains includes the still-active volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai and Ngorongoro, the world's largest caldera. Lake Victoria, the world's second largest freshwater lake, is not part of the rift; about 59,000 km² of Tanzania is inland water. Rainfall is seasonal: roughly half the mainland gets less than 750 mm a year.

Tanzania has lions, zebras and giraffes.

Huge herds of wildebeest walk across the Serengeti. They look for grass and water. Hippos and crocodiles live by rivers and lakes.

Tanzania has an amazing mix of wildlife. Herds of wildebeest, zebras, giraffes, buffalo, gazelles and elands live in its parks, along with lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas and wild dogs. Hippos and crocodiles are common along rivers and lakes, and small groups of chimpanzees live in Gombe National Park on Lake Tanganyika.

In the Serengeti, about two million wildebeest, with hundreds of thousands of gazelles and zebras, travel in a great circle every year in search of grass and water. Their predators follow them. About a quarter of Tanzania's land is set aside for parks and reserves.

Britannica attributes Tanzania's exceptionally rich wildlife to the historically low density of human settlement. Hoofed animals include wildebeest, zebras, giraffes, buffalo, gazelles, elands, dik-diks and kudu; predators include hyenas, wild dogs, lions, leopards and cheetahs. Nearly 1,500 kinds of birds have been reported, and the government has taken special measures to protect rhinoceroses and elephants from poaching. About one-fourth of the land forms a network of reserves, conservation areas and national parks.

UNESCO describes the Serengeti (inscribed 1981) as hosting the largest remaining unaltered animal migration in the world: over a million wildebeest plus hundreds of thousands of other hoofed animals make a 1,000 km circular trek across Tanzania and Kenya. It lists about 2 million wildebeest, 900,000 Thomson's gazelles and 300,000 zebras, more than 500 bird species, and at least four globally threatened or endangered species: black rhino, elephant, wild dog and cheetah. In the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, established in 1959, wildlife shares the land with semi-nomadic Maasai herders.

Tanzania has many different peoples.

Almost everyone speaks Swahili. Many people also speak the language of their own group. Farmers grow corn, rice, bananas and cassava.

More than 120 African peoples live in Tanzania, including the Sukuma, the largest group, the Chaga on the slopes of Kilimanjaro and the Maasai in the north. Swahili and English are the official languages. Almost everyone speaks Swahili, and children learn in Swahili in the first seven years of primary school.

Farming is very important. Corn (maize) and rice are the preferred grains, and farmers also grow bananas, cassava, millet and sweet potatoes. Coffee, cotton, tea and cashew nuts are grown to sell abroad. Football (soccer) is widely played and watched, and Makonde carvers in the south are famous for their ebony carvings.

Most surveys count more than 120 indigenous African peoples in Tanzania. Most are of Bantu descent, the Sukuma south of Lake Victoria being the largest group; others include the Nyamwezi, Hehe, Haya, Chaga and Makonde, while Nilotic peoples such as the Maasai live in the north-central mainland. Britannica notes that, unlike many African countries, Tanzania has no single politically or culturally dominant ethnic group. Swahili, which grew from Bantu dialects and Arabic on the coast and Zanzibar, is the national language and lingua franca; English is the other official language and is used in higher education. Roughly one-third of people are Muslim and almost two-thirds Christian, and on Zanzibar almost everyone is Muslim.

About two-fifths of the population works in farming. The main food crops are corn, rice, sorghum, millet, bananas, cassava and sweet potatoes, and coffee and cotton are the leading export crops. Zanzibar once grew more than nine-tenths of the world's cloves. More than two-fifths of Tanzanians are under 15, and almost one-third live in towns and cities.